This invention relates generally to welding and more particularly to welding in an inert gas environment.
As the need for lighter and/or stronger materials has increased, particularly with regard to aerospace constructions, the interest in and the use of titanium and its alloys likewise has been increased. Although titanium, and titanium alloy, workpieces have the desired and needed characteristics of exceptional tensile strength and heat resistance, said workpieces are susceptible to atmospheric contamination during welding. Accordingly, in joining said workpieces by welding it is usual, and indeed necessary, either to weld the workpieces in a rigid chamber which has been purged of ambient air with and by the use of an inert gas, or to weld the workpieces in an area defined by shielding fixtures when a rigid chamber is not used. Each of the aforesaid techniques has inherent serious disadvantages. The use of the chamber requires an enormous waste of time and waste of the purging inert gas used. On the other hand, when a rigid purge chamber is not used, an almost endless array of shielding fixtures are required which, in turn, result also in a tremendous waste of time because the shielding array is not permanent, i.e., not reusable. This also results in shielding being an unduly expensive technique.
It is, therefore, readily apparent that what is needed in the art, and is not current available, is an apparatus which eliminates the aforementioned disadvantages, and which also permits the uncontaminated welding of titanium (and titanium alloy) workpieces and of other workpieces of other metals (and metal alloys) which are susceptible to atmospheric contamination during welding.